


for the fragile things we are

by Aspidities



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fisting, Fuck Or Die, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Red Kryptonite, Red Kryptonite Kara Danvers, Slow Burn, They’re real mad right now but they will love each other soon i promise, lex Luthor is a bastardman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:41:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21830134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspidities/pseuds/Aspidities
Summary: (Set post 5x07)There are the traps that are laid for you and then there are the traps you lay yourself.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 38
Kudos: 710





	for the fragile things we are

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this ignores the events of COIE because I’m a childbrained mid30s person with no ability to pay attention to six different shows at once, and I also don’t regularly watch Supergirl, so apologies in advance, yeah. 
> 
> And a solid disclaimer that you should definitely use lube for fisting and fisting is also not therapy. Don’t send me your hospital bills, thanks.

It’s all wrong, as soon as Lena wakes up. 

Her head is sore and painful and fuzzy and the floor below her is cold and metallic—decidedly _not_ the surface of her king-sized bed. She blinks awake, slowly, and her mouth tastes of iron. There’s dried blood on her lip—it’s split and her tongue pokes at the wound, pestering it. She has no idea how it got there. 

She’s in some kind of a cell. There’s blue-green crackling energy surrounding the walls, but it’s otherwise unremarkable. Bars, a bolted-to-the-wall bed, a spare metal toilet. Around them is emptiness—a wide, abandoned warehouse with shadows everywhere. She blinks. A cell. Why is she in a cell? 

The last thing she remembers was the Fortress. Kara’s wounded expression. Her begging. The way the Kryptonite crawled up her face. The way it twisted at her heart. 

It’s only when she draws herself up to sitting position that she sees the spill of cape, the blue-and-red crumpled form. Kara is limp, unconscious on the other side of the cell. Lena feels a quick, sharp pang to see matted blood on those golden curls, but she pushes that down. Hard. 

Something has happened. She is instantly mistrustful as Kara groans awake. This has to be a DEO scheme. Something Kara cooked up to stop her from exacting her plans with Myriad. She scoots across the cell as far as she can get away from the blonde, ignoring the sear of pain in her skull. 

“What is this?” She demands, hot and imperious, as Kara rubs the back of her head, wincing at Lena’s raised voice. “What did you do?”

“What did _I_ do?” Kara’s grimace of pain deepens. “Lena, we’re in the same cell. I didn’t do anything—-“ She stops short and doubles over, suddenly gasping. 

Concern swamps Lena before she thinks better of it and she scoots closer, frowning. “Kara? Are you—“

Kara lifts her head. Her blue eyes are panicky, and there are red veins lighting up under her skin. “Something’s wrong.” Her voice is hoarse. “I feel—“ 

She shudders and hunches over again, and Lena’s heart tightens like a strangling vine is wrapped around it. “Kara?”

This isn’t right. She doesn’t want this. She doesn’t want Kara to hurt like this. That wasn’t in her plan. Whatever this is, she’s frightened by it, overwhelmed. Surges of emotion rush up into her gullet and she swallows, rapidly, blinking. Her hands want to reach out and touch Kara. She holds them in her lap, fiercely. 

“I’m okay.” Kara draws a long shuddering breath. She doesn’t look okay. She’s panting. Lena’s never seen her even break a sweat but her skin is glistening. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

Kara sounds like maybe she’s talking to herself. Her fingers are flexing on the floor and her veins are bright red. Lena swallows, again. _She’s afraid,_ Lena realizes. And that _is_ scary. 

“She’s really not.” 

The voice is so familiar that it snaps Lena’s head upright. She’s dazed, unwitting, when Lex steps into view from the gloom. The light is fuzzy but she can see him. Three-piece suit and all. She blinks. She’s not hallucinating. 

“ _Lex?_ ”

It’s impossible. Words race around in her dry mouth. Words she screamed at Kara. _I shot my brother for you_ and _do you know what you’ve done_. But it’s Lex walking to her, alive and whole. 

It’s him. 

He comes to her side, kneels by the bars and traces a finger just above the crackling electricity, almost wistfully. Playfully. As if they’re children again and Lena’s being locked in her room for misbehavior. He looks the same. There’s a ragged scar at his throat—puckered and new. His skin is grey, and his eyes are bloodshot, but he’s alive. 

“She’s definitely not okay.” Lex continues, as if in mid-conversation. “And in about two or three minutes, she’s going to be worse.” He tilts his head at Lena. “You know anything about Red Kryptonite?”

Lena opens her mouth but he waves a hand at her, arrogant as always. “Of course you do, but probably not about what I mean. You know it affects their brain chemistry. But do you know what it brings out of them?” 

He taps the side of his skull at her and she sees his nails are long, yellowed. His grin is hollow-eyed. Mad. “Their desires, Lena. It brings out their deepest, darkest desires. And desire is the most dangerous drug of all.”

“Lex.” Her voice is dry, and she tries to stand but he shushes her down. “How did you—“

“Don’t try to talk. You’ve had a nasty blow to the head.” He tuts, quietly. “We had to knock you both out to bring you in, and luckily you made it easier for us by reversing the Fortress protocols.” He smiles almost fondly at her but she can see malice twinkling behind his eyes, sharp and cold as glass. 

“Who’s we?” Lena asks, but Lex only smiles at her and Lena knows. _Leviathan._

Kara lets out a sharp groan, and her body convulses, tightly. Lena shoots her a quick glance—but it’s not quick enough. Lex follows her eye movement like a cobra and his smile is oily with triumph. “I’m glad you’re awake. This part really would be not as fun for me if you were unconscious. But I suppose that could be preferable for you.”

His fingers trail lightly over the electrical field, searing where they hit the beams. He doesn’t seem to notice the pain, or if he does, he doesn’t react. Lena flinches away from his hand, unconsciously. 

“You shot me, you know.” He tells her, calmly. 

“I know.” She can’t look away from him. The second she does she knows he will strike. 

“You did it to save her.” He jerks his chin at Kara’s bowed head, and his sneer is wide. “But she was betraying you the whole time. Lying to you.”

 _I know,_ Lena thinks, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. Lex is staring her down, watching her as he speaks. His eyes are maniacal and yet so, so calm. It’s frighteningly mesmerizing. 

“You betrayed me, and she betrayed you. And I know you had some kind of grandiose plan for revenge, but let’s be honest, Lena—“ he leans in and she can smell his breath now, sickly-sweet with rot, “—I was always better at that than you.”

Kara moans, pitiful and pained, and it clutches at something in Lena’s heart. “What did you mean about Red Kryptonite?” She asks, hoping to deflect him longer. “What did you do to her?”

“It’s not just the Red Kryptonite, it’s my own special cocktail.” He looks at Kara with something like fiendish delight, and it makes Lena shiver. “I figured it out months ago—how to show you what it feels like to have something you love turn against you.” His eyes are back on hers now, sharp and glittering. “And I figured out how to make _her_ do exactly that.”

“Lex.” Kara’s voice is low and hoarse and it makes her jump. “Don’t do this. Please.” She’s dragged herself up on her arms, and they’re wobbling, covered in black-and-red veins. Her eyes are almost coals. She looks like death. “Let her out, get her away from me. She’s your sister. _Please_.” 

It’s disquieting that she’s pleading for Lena, even now. 

Lena could have told Kara that Lex was immune to anything like begging, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Lex is already smiling down at Kara’s desperation. “And they said aliens are more intelligent.” 

He laughs, harshly and looks around, gesturing to no one, before fixing his cold gaze back on Kara. “She stays where she is. And whatever you do to her...is what _you_ do, Kryptonian.” He’s getting up now, brushing his knees off. “But I wouldn’t try to fight it. It’ll be a slower death for you if you do.”

He stands, looking at Lena like she’s a gnat. A contemptuous, degraded insect. Everything inside her shrivels. “The Kryptonite shows them for what they are, you see. I always knew it would, deep down. They play at gods, but they’re not gods.” He laughs. “They lust, like all of us. They _take_ what they want, when they think no one is looking.” He looks down at Lena again, darkly. “And when they do, they don’t leave anything of value behind.” 

“Supergirl won’t kill me.” Lena says it with conviction before she realizes she truly feels it. She can feel Kara looking at her with surprise under her pain but she refuses to look back. “You’re a fool if you don’t think her moral code is stronger than whatever drug you’ve pumped her full of. That’s the one thing that I—“

She stops herself, swallowing, before she can say _that’s the one thing I still trust about her_ , but she’s said enough. Lex sees her, and so does Kara. 

She’s not sure which is more humiliating. 

“Oh, she’s not going to kill you.” Lex laughs. She doesn’t like that laugh. It’s victorious. “At least, not _intentionally_. But Kryptonian sex is pretty forceful when they’re all Redded out, and I doubt she’ll be gentle once it kicks in.”

_Sex._

“You….” Lena is horrified, momentarily struck dumb. “You _wouldn’t_.”

“You _shot_ me.” He reminds her, eyes daggers behind his smile. “I designed this, Lena. I know exactly what your weak spot is, remember? Because you _shot_ me over it.” He gestures at Kara, heaving for breath. “Over _her_.” 

His lips curl, disdainfully. “So now you’re going to be locked in a cage with her while she loses all her sanity and devolves down to a monster of rages and lusts, and you’re going to take whatever she gives you. Because this was your choice.”

He leans in to the bars. Smiles while he whispers his chosen barb. 

“And if you _die_ after she’s used every hole on your body and then some, well….” He shrugs, nonchalant. “That was your choice, too.”

Lena slams her fist against the bars. Electricity burns up her wrist and she drops her hand instantly, but it’s done the trick—Lex jumps back, startled, and she can see his fury at her managing to get the jump on him. But it’s over quick, too quick, and then he’s moving away, smiling again at her with a stoat’s grace. 

“Enjoy your honeymoon, Lena.” He calls, fading into the gloom. “It’ll be brief, but I hope quite eventful.”

“Fuck you.” She spits into empty air, but his shoes are retreating, somewhere in the warehouse to the sound of a door swinging open and closed, and she knows he’s gone. 

“Lena.” Kara’s voice is a croak. Lena looks at her and she raises her head, eyes half-black, face haggard with effort of restraint. “You have to find a way to escape. You have to get out of here.”

“Just...try to control yourself.” Lena is unsure she even could figure a way out. Kara seems to have limitless faith in her genius but she doesn’t even know where she is, let alone how to disable the power source keeping them trapped here. “I’ll think of a way to free us both.”

She reaches out, without thinking. Still Kara’s best friend, inside. Still trying to comfort her. 

“ _No_.” Kara’s voice is like a whip crack across her spine. It’s desperate, raw. When Lena looks at her in askance, Kara’s face is grey, drawn. “Please, you have to stay away from me, Lena. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She isn’t sure how she should be responding in this situation. It feels like just a minute ago she was screaming at Kara in the Fortress, composure long-lost and angry tears streaking down her face. But the way Kara is looking at her now—sick with a blend of shame and fear—it ignites the desire in her to comfort. To help fix it. 

“What…” she wets her lips. “What does it feel like? Is there any way I can help?”

Kara lets out a helpless moan that does something shudder-y to Lena’s insides. 

“It feels like _burning_ , Lena. Burning inside my veins.” She shakes her head, as if to dispel a fly buzzing by her ear, but there’s nothing. “Just….just stay back. On that side. I’m _afraid_.” She wets her lips. “I’m afraid of what I might do.”

“What—“ Lena starts, but then Kara rolls her head on her shoulders and lets out a deep groan. “Kara?”

When Kara lifts her head again, her eyes are all black. Her smile is strange, cold. Unfamiliar. 

Lena swallows. Fear is racing in her heart. “Kara?” Her voice is smaller, now. 

“I’m here.” Kara’s lips are moving, and that’s Kara’s voice, but something in those eyes isn’t right. Something else is staring back at her. Something calculating. “I’m fine.”

Lena pulls herself against the bars in the corner, backing up. Suddenly she’s very aware of how much stronger Kara is, how much faster. She’s seen Kara break building-sized hunks of concrete with her bare hands. She’s seen Kara lift an airplane out of the sky. 

She swallows. 

“Come here.” Kara’s voice is beguiling. Too beguiling. 

“No.” She’s shaking her head even before the words leave her lips. “Not a chance.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Kara smooths a hand over the metal floor. “I just want to touch you, Lena.” Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Don’t you want that?”

“No. Both of us are straight.” Lena lies through her teeth. She’s hoping Kara can’t see her trembling against the bars. “Stay over there.”

“ _Straight_.” Kara throws her head back and laughs, deep and genuine, and for a moment Lena almost thinks she’s truly herself, but then her head tilts back and those eyes are glittering dark. She’s afraid of the shiver that runs through her at the sight of them. “Don’t lie, Lena. I can smell it on you. Did you know that?”

“Don’t be crude.” Lena’s blushing now, heat flaring up her face. She shifts her thighs closer together. 

“I can always smell it on you.” Kara moves closer, and Lena can see the interplay of muscles shifting in the shadows. She draws in a quick breath. “Did you know that I can hear how your heartbeat increases when you see me?”

“Stay on your side, Kara.” Lena warns, but it’s futile. 

“I can smell your wet cunt on the air whenever I come to you, either as Kara or as Supergirl.” It’s as if she didn’t hear Lena. Her hands slide closer, palms making a dusty noise on the metal floor. “You want me. You’ve always wanted me.”

“Not like this.” Lena realizes, too late, that this is an admission of sorts. Her chest tightens and she flushes, ashamed. “Never like this.”

Kara’s grin is triumphant, feral. She’s never looked more beautiful, or more terrifying. Lena’s heart is thudding in her thighs and she knows Kara can hear it. It’s humiliating and exposing and she’s ashamed beyond belief...but aroused beyond belief too. 

“Why not like this?” Kara purrs, and Lena realizes she’s already very close. “Isn’t this just what you think you deserve?” She leans in and Lena has to bite back a moan. “To be _fucked_ on a dirty cell floor by Supergirl as a punishment for all your many sins?”

 _Oh. God._ Lena’s trembling. She’s terrified and yet intoxicated. Kara’s hungry mouth is so close to her ear, to her neck. _She could rip me in half. She could take me and fuck me however she wanted. I’m helpless. I can’t stop her._ She closes her eyes.

“What do you think I deserve?” 

The words come out of someplace deep inside her. She doesn’t even realize she’s spoken them out loud until her eyes fly open and Kara is looking down at her with sudden dawning knowledge. Blue filters in around the black edges. 

It’s as if her words broke the spell, and Kara is herself again. 

“Not this.” Kara’s voice is suddenly raspy, small. Her body curls in on itself. “No. You don’t deserve this. Lena, I’m sorry.” She raises her head and Lena can see the war in real time behind her eyes. “You deserve _love_ , Lena. No matter what you’ve done.” She hesitates, and continues. “And I love you too much to hurt you, ever again.”

_Fuck._

It’s like a bomb has detonated behind her rib cage. She blinks back tears. She opens her mouth—to say _what_ she doesn’t know—but Kara is shaking her head, viciously, murmuring _‘no no no_ ’. “Kara?”

She leans in closer. “Kara?”

Suddenly, a hand is on her throat and she’s pinned down to the ground. Kara’s body is on top of her, grinding down, and her fingers flex over Lena’s neck, threateningly. A crushing wave of arousal swamps her senses and she cries out, yelping like a helpless thing. A trapped bird. 

“You’re mine.” The voice that hisses out into her ear is heated. Lips and teeth tug at her earlobe, and breath spills heavy over her shuddering, exposed neck. “All mine.”

“K-Kara!” A hand is roaming over her breasts, fondling and squeezing with possesive intent. Her nipples are so hard they hurt, and when Kara’s fingers pinch at them, she sucks in a breath through her teeth. “Kara, I know you’re in there. Please, you _don’t_ want to do this.”

“You don’t know what I want to do.” Lips snag down her neck, and Kara’s mouth drags wetly along the ridge of her collarbone, tongue dipping into her clavicle. “I’ve thought about you under me for years, Lena. Ever since I met you.”

“Why didn’t you act on it, then?” Lena challenges, as she squirms under Kara’s seeking, insistent fingers, plucking at her nipples through her shirt. “The Kara I know never once told me she had anything even close to a _crush_ on me.”

“That’s because the Kara you know is a weak, scared little girl.” Dark eyes flit possessive and sharp over Lena’s body, dragging down between her legs. Lena feels the heat of her eyes like a furnace. “Can’t stand up to her sister. To J’onn. Can’t stand up to anyone. Can’t tell you the truth about anything. Can’t keep you safe.”

“You’re talking about yourself like that’s not you. It’s just the Kryptonite talking, Kara.”

“No.” Kara cups her cheek, thumbs over her lips. “No, it’s not.” 

Then she kisses Lena and it’s brutal, hot and sweet. Filled with something heavy. Something weighted. She lets out a breath and Kara’s lips follow it down. Consuming her. Her hands pull Lena close, her hips push Lena to the ground, and everything is insistent, seeking and needy. She sags against the heat of that impulse, and her mind goes blank for one brief, terrifying instant. 

If she’s not careful she’ll drown. She knows it. Kara knows it, too. 

“Kara.” She breathes, into conquering, insistent lips. She doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Say you want this.” Lips are dragging against hers, teeth indenting in her flesh. “Say you want me. I know you do, Lena.”

“I want you.” She admits, helpless in her defeat, and the answering groan of triumph rattles her bones to their very marrow. She’s pressed back against the floor, Kara’s mouth consuming her own, and eager hands are pulling her blouse open, scattering buttons like confetti. 

Fingers twist on her nipple through the La Perla lace of her bra and she gasps, sharp and loud in the emptiness of the warehouse. Those same fingers are moving to her skirt now, under the prim hem, heading toward the concealed zipper. Lena doesn’t know how to stop this. 

She doesn’t know if she wants to stop it. 

“Kara.” She says again, high and pitched too breathy. She doesn’t sound at all like herself and it’s concerning. Her thighs shift together and come away sticky. Wet. 

“So pretty.” Kara’s voice is thick against her neck, damp and rumbling close to her pulse. “I want to see if your panties are this pretty, too.”

Lena could tell her that they match—because she’s a _Luthor,_ after all—but Kara has forsaken the hunt for the zipper and is pushing her pencil skirt up her thighs, rolling the fabric until it wraps around her waist like a belt. She’s exposed, her legs pale like ghosts in the gloom, and the plum-colored lace of her panties does nothing to hide the way it clings to her, cleaving to her slick vulva with the heat of her desire. It’s terribly humiliating but exhilarating in all the worst ways. She’s deeply aware that she forgot to shave this morning, and her thighs flush with the shame of it. 

Her cheeks are on fire, too, and she tries to twist from Kara’s intense gaze, bringing her legs together, but Kara holds one knee down flat to the cold floor with a casual kind of authority. Spreading her open. Kara’s strength is breathtaking and she’s clearly not even trying—eyes lasered on Lena’s cunt, mouth hungrily parted. Lena squirms, trapped, and Kara barely seems to notice. 

“You’re going to look so good when you come for me.” Kara tells her, voice rough and eyes dark, and Lena crumbles inside. 

Kara is moving her underwear to one side, her hand still firm on Lena’s knee, when a last desperate thought occurs to her. It’s a Hail Mary. She takes it. 

“Even i-if I want this,” she chokes out, watching as Kara’s fingernails skid along her labia, touching downy skin with a strange kind of reverence, “it doesn’t mean you really do. When we get out of here— _if_ we get out of here—you’re going to _hate_ yourself for what you’ve done to me.”

She didn’t mean for her words to be a lash so much as a caution, but Kara reacts to them as if she’s been struck in the face. She reels back, blue eyes blinking in horror, and scrambles away, pushing back to the other end of the cage. Lena’s ashamed to feel the loss of those firm fingers on her leg, and the sudden lack of Kara’s warmth twists at her gut. There is a confusing mix of feelings—loss, lingering resentment, shame, relief, lust. 

She’s not sure what to feel first, but that doesn’t matter right now. 

Kara buries her head in her hands. Her sob of anguish is a sudden, sharp noise that cuts through Lena’s fog, and Lena feels a pang of sympathy before she remembers to be angry at Kara. She still wants to convince herself she could hate Kara, for all the lying and betrayal, but her conviction on that is getting buried under layers of confusion. 

“Lena, I’m so sorry.” Kara’s teeth are clenched and she backs herself to the bars, refusing to look in Lena’s direction. Her fists are white-knuckled. “You’re right, I’m _so_ sorry.”

“Kara—“ Lena stops herself. She wants to say _it’s not your fault_ but that would be too much like comfort. She swallows. “It’s okay. Let’s just think of ways we can escape.”

Kara nods, miserably. Clears her throat. “I’ll, uh. See if I can get these bars open. Maybe you can fix my broken communicator ?”

Lena could say _we don’t work together anymore, Supergirl_ but that would be pointless. She can save her barbs for another time, when she isn’t being threatened by an amorous, altered-brain-chemistry-Kryptonian. So she bites her lip and nods back, thinking that professional candor is probably the better part of valor in these circumstances, and tries to smooth her rumpled, ruined skirt down over her hips again. There’s no saving the shirt, however, so she just sits in her blazer and bra, uncomfortably aware of the red marks of Kara’s mouth all over the tops of her breasts. 

They work for what could be a few hours. Kara’s communicator gets passed to Lena, and she tinkers with it, using a hair clip and a thin length of wire from her broken skirt zipper. Kara paces the bars, slamming into them as if to express her frustration, and periodically yelping when the electricity jolts her. The power source isn’t revealing itself. She studiously avoids looking at Lena as she bends over the communicator watch. 

It’s no use. Lena knows. Lex wouldn’t leave them with anything capable of help. The broken communicator was left to toy with their emotions—to make them _hope_ . Lex so dearly loves to teach Lena lessons about _hope_ and what a futile, fragile thing it is. 

Still, she keeps working stubbornly on the watch, convincing herself that she is smarter than he is. She will find something he left behind. Something he didn’t see. It’s exactly what Lex would expect but she can’t help herself. It’s in her nature to fight fate as much as it is in his to be the cruel arbiter of it. 

Another slam on the bars and she jumps, a little, without meaning to. Kara looks pained and mutters a low _sorry_ before she hunches down, sitting with her head on her knees. Her chest is moving heavily and Lena can see her perspiration. Damp curls cling to the back of her neck, where the sweep of her hair has left it bare. She still looks overwhelmingly beautiful. Dangerous, dark. But beautiful. 

Lena’s fingers itch to touch her there. Soothingly, softly. Scratching with lazy intent. Gripping with lust. 

But _no_. She shakes herself. That was the Old Way of thinking about Kara. The way she had thought of her Before. Now there is only the bare bones of what they are—the ugly bleached-white skeleton of lies. Her lies. Kara’s lies. All of them swirling and compounding and leaving them trapped here, in a cage like rats, to die with their sins, both spoken and unspoken. 

She watches Kara draw ragged breath, and her heart wrenches as if it’s being squeezed. 

Kara doesn’t look very aware. She’s ashen, with the black lines of her veins crackling along her skin. Her eyes flicker from blue to black when she looks at Lena, so she keeps her jaw pointed stiffly away, but her hands are twitching in her lap. Clenching and unclenching. 

Lena thinks of Lex’s words from before— _I wouldn’t try to fight it. It’ll be a slower death if you do._

_A slower death._

Lena bites her lip. “Kara?”

A tousled blonde head lifts, eyes bleary. “Did you get the watch working?”

“Not yet.” She fibs. It’s never going to work but Kara doesn’t need to know that. “You don’t look so good.”

That’s a lie, too, because even though Kara looks stricken and damp with sweat, she’s still achingly lovely. There’s a kind of aura around her that draws Lena’s senses in like gnats to the buzzer. She’s unable to stop thinking about the way those strong hands held her to the floor, the press of fingers leaving bruises in the meat of her leg. 

Kara lets out a bark of a laugh. Her palm slides across her face, and it’s sweaty. “I don’t feel great, to be honest.” She shoots Lena a look that could be interpreted as friendly banter. “What’s with you Luthors and Kryptonite, huh?”

Lena stiffens. She has no defense against the truth in that jibe, so she only looks away and holds her shoulders still and straight. 

Kara lets out a ragged sigh. “I’m sorry, that was unfair.”

Obliquely, Lena suddenly wants to hit her for apologizing. Because of course, it’s Lena who has been unfair. Lena who has been seething for months, waiting to strike. Not giving Kara a chance to change her mind. She doesn’t hit Kara, but she shifts uncomfortably, feeling itchy and unpleasant as her mind goes blank, sorting away the scattered mess of her feelings into unlabeled corners. 

“We’re in this together, I guess. I hope you still know that, if anything.” Kara’s voice is so absurdly kind, even in her obvious stress from Kryptonite exposure, that Lena wants to shake her and scream at her again. 

_We are not friends_ , she thinks, savagely. _I won’t care if you die._

But that’s a lie, and she knows it. 

There’s a long moment before she gives in and nods. Just a quick jerk of her chin, but she can see over her shoulder how Kara relaxes. The relief of it was palpable on her face. And once again Lena is hit with that Before longing. The hope that Lex wanted to crush out of her. 

Time passes. Lena keeps herself busy with the communicator watch and Kara keeps hammering at the bars. Her frustration is growing, Lena can smell it, so she keeps her head down, focusing on her work. Like all children of alcoholics, she knows how to be unobtrusive when others are exhibiting intense emotions. Her ears stay pricked for Kara’s movements as she carefully twists the wire into position, but she only hears the regular thud of her footfalls on the metal. 

Until they stop. 

She looks up at the exact moment that Kara makes a strangled noise and doubles over, her face going white. And she forgets the watch, the cell, the fight, the lies. She forgets the Red Kryptonite version of Kara that has necessitated keeping her at arm’s length. She rushes to Kara without a second thought, propping her up as her blonde head rolls on her shoulders, listless and loose. 

“ _Kara!”_

God, this is a mess. Kara’s going to die in this cage and she loves her, _loves_ her but she _hates_ her and she’s done _terrible_ things to keep hating her, to hold onto the sanity of hating her, because she thinks she’ll go _crazy_ if she loves Kara, loves her and watches her die like this—

“Kara, stay with me, stay awake.”

She shakes Kara’s iron shoulders, but it’s like trying to move a ton of bricks. Kara is _heavy_ and she sags, barely upright, chin tucked to her chest. Lena can’t hold her upright so she leans Kara back onto the floor, frantically searching for a pulse. 

Her fingers slip into place against Kara’s neck just as her eyelids begin to flutter. “Lena? Did I fall?”

“You doubled over. It looked like you passed out for a moment.” Lena tells her, still feeling Kara’s neck. Her skin is cold and damp with perspiration and she smiles blearily at Lena like she’s dazed. 

“S’okay.” Kara slurs, and her hand lifts as if to touch Lena’s face. Lena grabs it and tries to shush her back down but Kara waves her off. “S’okay, Lena. S’just the Red K. Wants me to break, but I’m good. I won’t hurt you.” Her eyes tilt solemnly up at Lena’s face, brilliantly blue. “Would never hurt you.”

 _You’ve already hurt me._ Lena almost says it. It’s on her tongue like acid—ready to fire. It must be on her face because Kara frowns, brow knitting. It’s almost comical how clearly she takes issue with Lena’s upset. 

“I know you hate me.” Her voice is blurry but earnest, and Lena hates herself for tuning into it with every fiber of her being. “But you’re always going to be my _Lena_ , Lena. You know?”

Lena _doesn’t_ know, but she nods, just to make Kara stop talking. She’s pretty sure the Kryptonite moves through her the more she moves. It’s in her veins, after all. She’s aware of how intimately she is pressed to Kara’s side—close enough to feel her heartbeat and smell her sweet, fervid breath—but she doesn’t move. 

“What do you mean it wants you to _break_?” She asks Kara, carefully. “The Red Kryptonite wants you to do things? To hurt me?”

Kara flushes, and her tongue touches to her upper lip. “Wants me to….fuck you, mostly.” She sees Lena’s face and hastens to add: “But I won’t! Don’t worry!” She beams up at Lena drunkenly and nods. “S’okay. This is how I die. M’okay with it.”

“ _Die?”_ Lena’s fingers fly up to Kara’s pulse again. Sure enough, it’s growing weaker. Her own heart hammers in panic. “Kara, what the hell is happening to you?”

But even as she shakes Kara’s shoulders, her brain is racing ahead, answering her own question. Lex had said the Red K makes Kryptonians monsters of rages and lusts. That it affects their brain chemistry. He had mentioned a slow death. Lena can see it all unfolding in front of her as if she has x-ray vision into Kara’s skull. Wrapped in a cocktail of nerve agents, the Red K has infiltrated Kara’s brain stem, wrapping oily tendrils around her central nervous system. It is strangling her oxygen supply until she gives it what it wants— _release_. 

It is a monster of Id, of want, and Kara—noble as ever—is fighting it with every ounce of her being. 

Kara is oxygen deprived for now, which makes her drunk and sleepy, but soon she will be oxygen depleted. And her brain will begin to die. One by one, the lights that made Supergirl the brightest star in the galaxy will begin to burn out and die away. And then there would be nothing. 

_I don’t want this. I don’t want her to die._ Lena realizes, for perhaps the first time since Hope had asked her that fatal question all those weeks ago. She stares down at Kara’s blinking, bleary face, and thinks _i don’t i don’t i don’t_ over and over until her brain starts to reboot itself. 

“Kara, you can’t die.” It’s almost a whisper. And then Lena is shaking her in earnest, shaking her hard. She slaps her, twice, but Kara’s face doesn’t even move. “Kara! Listen to me! You can’t die!”

Before Lena really thinks about what she’s doing, she’s moving. She’s pushing her blazer off her shoulders and pulling her skirt down her knees, kicking her pumps off. Her motions feel frantic, panicky. She can’t lose Kara, _won’t_ lose Kara. 

She slides one of Kara’s limp hands into her bra and blue eyes jerk wide open. 

“Lena?” It’s slurred, but she’s speaking again. Kara blinks at her. “What’re you—“

“Shut up.” Lena takes Kara’s other hand and slips it up under her lace too. She closes her eyes, slowly as Kara’s hands flex, and opens them again. “Just...touch me.”

“Lena—“ Kara starts to drag her hands down but Lena pins them back in place, firmly. “I won’t—“

“Like hell you will.” She hisses between her teeth. “You want Lex to win? This is how he wins. This is how he hurts me. If you die, he wins. So don’t you dare.” 

She slides a leg over Kara’s lap and slithers onto her body, half-straddling her as she presses herself closer. It’s a gambit, but she knows what she looks like—half-naked and desperate—and bets that Kara will be susceptible. It’s a bet she wouldn’t have made a few hours before, but after having had Kara crawling all over her telling her she’d look pretty when she comes—she’s willing to risk it. 

To push her advantage, she leans forward and kisses Kara with an insistent, seeking mouth. 

Kara’s lips part and her body shudders under Lena. She groans, hands tightening on Lena’s nipples, and every part of it is like rumbling thunder. Lena can still feel it in her rib cage when Kara’s tongue darts into her mouth, eager and sweeping. 

The kiss takes Lena somewhere heady, quiet. Somewhere thudding with her heartbeat in her ears and fraught with meaning. She doesn’t know how to process it—the way Kara is kissing her. She breaks away to gasp, but Kara folds her back, tilting her chin, and it’s a desperate connection. Mouths wet and clinging. Kara kisses like she’s dragging herself up from something, something deep and heavy with undertow, and her kiss grows stronger and stronger as Lena feels weaker and weaker with lust. Kara draws it out of her, and eventually one of her hands drops from Lena’s breast to curl around her ass, squeezing tightly. 

When Lena breaks again, at first Kara’s lips follow her neck down, as she swallows air, but then they pause, uncertain. The Red K hasn’t swamped her brain with urges yet, but it’s close. “Lena, are you—“

“Shh.” She folds her hand over the fingers Kara still has on her breast and leans closer, touching their foreheads. “Give in to it, Kara. I trust you. I’m here. Touch me.”

And she does. She does trust Kara. It’s something she can only admit now, in the quiet gloom of an abandoned warehouse as she begs her former best friend to fuck her—she will _always_ trust Kara. Even if she hates her, sometimes. Even if it’s hard. 

Kara is trustworthy. 

So, when the red cracks light up along her skin again, Lena isn’t afraid. She slings her arms around Kara’s neck and grinds down into her lap slowly, watching her face. Kara takes a deep, shuddering breath and her eyes flash, briefly, before she grips Lena more firmly and sits up. Her blue eyes are ringed in red, but Lena looks back at her, level and clear. 

“You want me.” It’s not a question. 

“Yes.” Lena tilts her head back on a sigh when Kara licks a sudden wet path up her neck. 

“Say it.” 

“I want you.” She closes her eyes and lets out a slow breath. Admits to the biggest of her internal demons. “I-I’ve always wanted you.”

“I know.” Kara’s eyes glitter, faintly. “Good girl.” 

And that really shouldn’t work as well as it does, but _god_. Lena feels weak even before Kara takes her bra off and works her tongue around her nipples in a sloppy figure-eight. She’s trembling and she’s telling herself it’s fear—fear of this incredibly short-sighted decision—but that’s not entirely the truth. 

She does want this. She’s wanted nothing _but_ this. That’s why it all hurts so much. 

But she doesn’t want to think about that right now, so Lena closes her eyes. She rocks on Kara’s lap, tilts her head back for her hungry, bruising mouth, and luxuriates in the tensing of broad muscles under her flattened palms. Kara is alive and wanting in her arms. Part of her thinks that’s enough. 

It doesn’t matter that Kara is rougher than she thinks she’d normally be. It doesn’t matter that her eyes are red-ringed and clouded in lust and her hands more sharp than kind. Perhaps this is what she deserves. This is what Lex thinks she deserves. Cruelty over kindness. Crushing the hope that Kara will ever love her—truly love her—down into a tiny ball so that she can never be fooled again. 

Lena gives in to it all—madness and heartache and lust—and lets Kara consume her whole. 

She’s tilted back onto the floor, bracingly cold against her back, while Kara tears her panties away. Just a little ‘pop’ of busted seams and they’re gone. Just like that. Lena can’t lie and say it doesn’t turn her on. Kara can clearly see it does. And she likes it. 

Kara this way is a strange, feral creature. Skittish of Lena’s hands, flinching away when she tries to stroke her hair or guide her fingers. Her smile is cruel and sharp but the way her blue eyes widen seems almost reverent when she parts Lena’s labia and spreads her open for view. She looks between Lena’s pale thighs for a long time, long enough to make Lena twitch with the intensity of it. Kara doesn’t seem to notice. When her tongue touches her lip, it’s pale pink—dusky like a rose—and Lena fixates on it, helplessly. 

“You’re wet.” Kara tells her, unnecessarily. Her fingers slide up to tap against the side of Lena’s left thigh. One, two, three. 

Lena doesn’t respond verbally. She just spreads her bent knees a bit wider, invitingly. Thankfully, Kara takes the hint. 

The first touch of Kara’s mouth makes her jump. She was expecting to be fucked raw. Spread and filled with no mercy, no warm up. Oral didn’t factor into her thinking when she started this endeavor. But Kara seems determined to taste her, moaning lowly into Lena’s labia as she licks her way around in broad, flat strokes. She seems a bit overcome. Which is useful because, _well_ , so is Lena. 

She’s wet, wet, wet and only growing messier as Kara has her fill, letting out helpless noises and rocking her hips up, pleading for more. Something inside her has gone soft and inane and babbling and it’s piteous, shameful how she mewls and whimpers Kara’s name. She’s _begging_. Luthors are supposed to be immune to that, and Lena normally is, to be fair. She just didn’t expect to be ravenously eaten while her former-best-friend stares up at her with blazing blue eyes, demanding every part of her—body and soul. She’s not sure how one could even prepare for that. 

She’s definitely not prepared for when Kara swirls her tongue around her asshole, and flicks inside for several shallow thrusts. She cries out, startled, and Kara smiles, holding her open, as if she’s swallowed a sun. Her fingers dance against the tight opening there, once, and then she’s back to licking into Lena’s cunt with a tongue that weaves and strokes with blinding speed. 

“You taste like a soft little peach.” Kara’s voice rumbles out into her thigh, and her teeth flash, sinking in—just enough to bruise. Lena rolls out a gasp, tensing, and Kara’s laugh is darkly confident. “Are you soft for everyone like this or just me?”

Lena closes her eyes against a sharp moan that wants to pulse out of her at Kara’s teeth on her skin, and she gives Kara the answer she’s driving at. It’s the truth, anyway. “Just you.”

“That’s good. Just for me.” Kara’s voice is hypnotic in its strange allure. Her confidence is raw and unchallenged—the way she would never be if not for the drug pounding through her veins, driving her on—and it’s arching Lena’s spine, shivering along her thighs. 

The slow glide of Kara’s tongue around her clit is molasses-thick, drowning Lena. Kara is suspiciously good at this and Lena wants to ask her some very impertinent questions that she knows she won’t ever get answers to—but later, not now. Right now Kara is building her up to the peak of a very long slope, and she longs to be pushed right off the edge. 

She’s close, very close, and her moans are loud enough that she can hear them over the thrum of the electric fencing, but she can’t bite them back in time. There’s something she needs, something she can’t verbalize or even think of, but its _right there_ and she thrashes, aching for _something_ . Kara’s tongue is flickering now, and she murmurs ‘ _let go Lena let go’_ into Lena’s clit right before she sucks it into her mouth and Lena wants to but she can’t—

Until Kara curls a single finger inside her clenching walls and she comes so violently that she almost doubles in half. 

There. That’s what she needed. The fullness. The feel of Kara inside her. But she needs more, more, _more_ , and as soon as her breath comes back to her lungs from her first orgasm it’s like she’s already on the peak again, teetering. 

Kara seems to know this with a kind of smugness that Lena wants to smack off her face, but she puts two fingers inside this time and fucks Lena ruthlessly, holding her legs open with her other hand as carelessly as if she were holding twigs, and makes Lena come again when she presses _hard_ on the soft, spongy inner wall. 

Lena is breathless, needy. She’s starting to whine. Kara fucks her again and again and again, without ceasing, but it’s still not enough. Three fingers, now, and one in her ass, wet with Kara’s saliva, but still not _enough,_ even as she comes again with a high, arching cry. The wet sounds of her body are obscene and _loud_ , but she just keeps getting wetter. The peak has no end—it marches upward on and on forever. 

Her cunt feels hot, achey. There’s a filthy suggestion in her head, rattling around and around but she can’t open her mouth to say it. Instead she cants her hips forward, thrusting against Kara’s driving wrist, and pulls at her shoulders. Begging without words. 

Four fingers now, and Kara has a furrow of concentration on her brow. Her mouth is frowning, clearly aware of Lena’s distress. She’s uncertain with her thrusts, thrown off-guard even under the influence of the red, and it’s driving Lena up the wall. 

She knows what she needs. 

With a shaking, careful hand, she reaches down between her legs and finds Kara’s soaked, thrusting fingers. Slowly, meaningfully, she folds Kara’s thumb into her palm, and rocks her hips forward. Kara’s eyes round wide and blue with innocence and for a moment it’s her Kara again, just Kara, until the red comes back and her voice is gravelly with surprise. 

“Are you sure?”

Lena knows she’s sure, she’s sure with every ounce of her being, but she knows she has to say the words. Kara is in there, somewhere deep down, and she needs to know Lena wants this. Needs to know Lena isn’t being coerced. Lena wants to tell her, but her throat is dry. She wets her lips. 

“Please.” Is what she manages, finally. “I need to feel you. All of you.”

Kara’s brow crinkles. “We need lube.” 

Lena’s about to protest that she’s surely wet enough—wet enough that she can feel it puddling under her ass—but then Kara’s face lights up and she shakes her wrist, alerting the biometric sensor on her suit. The nanofibres shift, and disappear, and suddenly she’s suit-less, naked. 

And if that wasn’t breathtaking enough, Kara takes the hand that was just four-fingers-deep into Lena’s cunt and reaches between her own thighs, bringing up a slick palmful of her own wet, and...well…Lena might be able to come from that visual alone. But the idea of it—Kara’s arousal for Lena all over her knuckles, slipping inside, one by one….

 _Fuck_. 

Kara sees her glassy-eyed state and laughs. She’s pleased as she kneels back down between Lena’s spread knees. Her nipples point upward and her breasts are small and sloping, with pink nipples like a sunrise. Lena wants to touch her, to tangle her fingers in golden blonde waves, but she’s transfixed, watching as Kara paints her cunt with slick trails of her own arousal. 

“There.” Kara’s voice is all smoke and cinders. Lena can hardly hear it without shivering. “You ready now?”

“Yes.” Lena closes her eyes. She doesn’t care anymore that this was Lex’s plan. She doesn’t care that this isn’t _her_ Kara—not really. She doesn’t care if the world burns around them. Her world is centered between her legs, where Kara’s fingers play slowly, slipping in and out. “ _Please_.”

And she must’ve sounded sufficiently needy, because Kara starts to work her up again, fingers at a time, _slowly_ , _slowly_ , _slowly_. The brush of her knuckles is almost tentative, at first. Soft. Inquisitive. Then she’s folding her thumb down and pressing, seeking into Lena, stretching her open, and it’s—

 _God_. 

She’s weeping, maybe. Her face is hot and her eyelashes feel wet and heavy. Her cunt aches, and burns, and sings with each press inward, but her body is opening for Kara. Steadily, surely. She’s opening for a hand strong enough to crumble buildings into dust. Strong enough to clench right in the heart of her, wrap fingers around her ribcage and crush it. She _wants_ it.

She’s slick and Kara is dripping sweat and her eyes are dark pools as she takes in a quiet breath and Lena is sure this will all drive her—finally—mad, but then Kara is inside her fully and she can’t think anymore. 

It’s Kara who breaks the silence, raspy and awed. “ _Rao_.” 

She starts to move, a little, and Lena is startled into grabbing her wrist, breath sucking in hard. “Don’t move yet.”

Kara’s red-lined face blinks back at her with something like apology. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” Lena breathes out, relaxing around Kara, but she keeps her fingers on the warmth of her wrist, resting against her stretched, overstuffed cunt. She feels _full_ in an aching, tingling way that hurts _good_. So she’s not lying. But there’s no words for how it feels. “I’m okay. You can move a little now.” 

Kara flexes her fingers, slowly. She looks down at where they’re joined, where her hand rests inside of Lena. “I’m inside you.” She says, softly. 

Lena gives a soft humm in agreement and drops her head back on the floor, closing her eyes. She can’t speak while Kara’s fingers move. Her body is transfixed on the slow rotation inside her, the feel of Kara’s heartbeat nestled against her own. Her own hands fall to the floor, trying to ground herself. She feels like she might float away, if not for the anchor of Kara’s hand inside her cunt. 

“You’re taking me.” Kara almost sounds like herself—the awe in her voice is only tempered by the rasp of her arousal. “Look at you.”

Lena doesn’t need to look. She feels it. Her eyes stay closed as Kara rotates her wrist slowly, flexing her fingers. It feels like she’s right under Lena’s heart. But Kara grunts and pushes in deeper, clearly not satisfied with Lena’s inattention and she gasps, eyes flying open. 

She sees Kara then, for perhaps the first time. The blend of her desires—Red K and Kara alone. She sees how Kara is watching her with a kind of intensity that could be something like—

“Watch.” Kara commands, but it’s soft. Almost pleading. “Watch me fuck you.”

So Lena does. She watches. She watches as Kara’s wrist glides in slow circles, thrusting shallowly with her knuckles grazing Lena’s cervix. A kiss. A tease. When Lena begins to whine, she moves deeper, stares into her eyes. When Lena starts to buck, she crawls over her body, presses their foreheads together, and tangles her free hand with Lena’s grasping, white fingers. 

“You’re mine.” She tells Lena as she pushes and pushes inside of her, fist moving against her womb, face dark and desperate in the pale light. “You’re mine and I _love_ you.”

Lena doesn’t know what the truth is, anymore, or who Kara is, either. She doesn’t know what love is, or if she can even feel it, but she _can_ feel Kara’s hand reaching into her body, so she gives into that. Her mouth drops open and she feels the peak inside of her shift, becoming a cresting wave, riding high. 

“Kara—“ She says, tightening on both sets of fingers. Kara’s eyes are swallowing Lena, pinning her in place. She has no choice to accept the onslaught of her orgasm as it happens. “Kara, Kara, _Kara_ —!”

Kara is all around her, inside of her, on top of her. Kara is breathing her lungs and swallowing her heart. Kara. Kara. Kara. Kara murmuring _that’s it good girl good girl_ as she comes and comes and _comes._

It goes on for a long time. 

When it’s over, Kara slides out of her on a rush of warm fluid, and Lena’s ass is wet once more. Her cunt feels sore and dilated and hot, and she is tired. Sleepy tired. Her limbs feel limp and weightless as Kara withdraws, examining her hand as if her glistening fingers were covered in jewels. 

Still, she wants to try and reciprocate. Kara is naked, after all, and Lena can see that the dark blonde curls between her legs are glossy with wet, along with her thighs. She’s turned on and full of a chemical consuming her brain stem with need, and Lena’s surprised Kara has taken this long to satiate herself, frankly. 

But when her hand slips up Kara’s thigh, stroking, blue eyes swivel to hers in something like shock. “What are you doing?”

“Touching you.” She tells Kara’s stunned expression. Her fingers tiptoe up to rest against her damp curls. “Is that okay?”

It seems strange to ask for consent after Kara was just wrist-deep inside of her, but the way Kara is blinking at her makes her think this part of her Red-K lust was not planned. _It seems Supergirl is a service top—_ Lena’s brain supplies, rather unhelpfully. She flattens her palm against Kara’s hip placatingly, and rubs the ridge of muscle just above it, admiring the cut of her abs. 

“You don’t have to...I mean, I’m good.” 

Now Kara sounds much more like herself. There’s almost a stutter there. Lena wonders about this ebb and flow of control that the Red K seems to have on her brain, but she shelves that for a later discussion. 

“You’re good.” Lena repeats back, slowly. Her eyebrow arches without her permission. 

Kara swallows. “I mean. You don’t have to.” She repeats, and Lena sees the reason for her hesitancy now, clear as day. 

“What if I want to?” Lena asks, simply. Her fingers start a slow rub on Kara’s hip. Little circles. Hints of what she could do lower. 

When Kara doesn’t answer except to look at Lena’s lips, Lena makes up her mind. She puts her other hand on Kara’s chest and pushes, gently. “Lay on your back.”

“What? No, I—“ Kara looks torn. “Are you sure?”

Lena raises up and kisses her. It’s just a quick press of the lips. Nothing special. But Kara’s eyes widen. And sure, maybe something that simple is a little too far. A little too much affection for Lena to back down from. But maybe she doesn’t care. Kara’s hand was just inside her, for God’s sake. 

“I’m sure.” She says, to Kara’s wide eyes. “Lay on your back and let me take care of you.”

So Kara does. 

She’s all lean muscle and nerves when Lena lays her down, following Kara’s tensed body with her own. It’s like she doesn’t know how to relax. Or where to put her hands. When Lena kisses her way down the sloping plane of her abdominal muscle, she has to be guided to put her hands in Lena’s hair. 

It’s sweet. It’s strange. It’s _Kara_. 

Kara’s clit is big, prominent and swollen red with need. Lena licks around it for a time before she gives in, but it’s mostly for show. Kara is wound up. Her thighs are jumping, and her teeth clench on her lip when she looks at Lena, desperate and sweaty. The taste of her is salt-sweet and thick. When Lena finally flicks her tongue over her hood, Kara fists her still-wet hand in Lena’s hair and her hips buck up like a colt. 

Lena only has to suck her clit into her mouth once before Kara comes, howling her name, hips jarring into her face so hard that she has to catch a quick breath to avoid her nose being smashed into Kara’s pelvis. She doesn’t mind, though. Kara’s orgasm is sweet on her tongue and the way her body quivers and jerks in the throes of her pleasure makes Lena feel as if she’s being touched herself. She moans into Kara’s reddened cunt and Kara says her name again, softer this time. _Lena._

It’s almost sweet, then. Kara strokes her hair, and Lena pillows her head on Kara’s thigh, cheek brushing short golden fuzz. She feels languid, fucked-out. Her world is upside down and backwards, and normally, she’d be panicking right about now. But there’s no energy left for that. 

So when Kara hauls her up by her shoulders, Lena doesn’t even protest as she’s curled into Kara’s chest, cheek brushing where the S-symbol would sit on her suit. She closes her eyes, and listens to the strength of that heartbeat—feeling a similar pulse still between her sore legs—and it lulls her to sleep. 

When she wakes, Kara is asleep too. Lena looks at her for a long time—the way her face slackens and becomes childlike in sleep, even with the red veins still pulsing on her cheeks. Kara is beautiful and helpless and still consumed, and Lena’s heart is tugged in a thousand different directions at once. 

Eventually she gets up and puts her blazer around her shoulders. Her bare skin is cold and prickling without Kara’s warmth, but she ignores it, padding over to the communicator watch. It glints in the faint light of the warehouse, as if winking at her. 

It’s working fine. She fixed it hours ago, before Kara doubled over. Her brother would’ve been steaming mad if he’d known his own hubris provided her escape, but she held back telling Kara. She doesn’t know why. 

Maybe because she wanted to see Kara suffer. 

Maybe because she wanted to see Kara weak. 

But those are lies and she _knows_ them as lies even as she tells herself it could be true. The real reason is because she didn’t want to return to the real world. The world where there is nothing for them but a past of lies and a future uncertain. The world where Lena’s plans seem to more and more hang on unfamiliar thread. 

She didn’t tell Kara the watch was fixed because she wanted just a little more. Just a bit more time where she could convince herself they could go back to the way it was. The Before, when Kara was all she loved and Supergirl didn’t stand in between them. 

There is no going back, though. Not anymore. 

She holds the communicator watch in her hand, and remembers Kara telling her how to use it on her balcony. She had a chance to stop everything then. She didn’t take it. But then again, Lena wasn’t very good at taking chances. 

She knows if she presses twice, the DEO will be alerted to Kara’s location. They’ll find them. They’ll have questions. Kara will be horrified at what she’s done. Kara will probably have her locked up. 

Or...she could stay here in this cell with Kara. This Kara. The Kara who says she loves her while her hand is touching Lena’s heart. The Kara who moaned her name like it was a prayer in a language only she knew. 

Lena casts another look at Kara’s sleeping, lovely face, surrounded by her wheat-blonde hair. The red veins throb there, just below the surface. Waiting to strangle her again. And Lena knows, it’s only a matter of time. 

She knows what she has to do. 

She holds the watch in her hands and presses twice. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> Want more? Follow the link in my [ Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aspidities) for updates and prompts and gay bullshittery the likes of which you’ve never seen


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